BBC National/News Channel from New Broadcasting House

I think there are a lot of valid points here. In fact, things are getting a bit stale. I think we are in drastic need of a refresh, maybe even new sets. Hell, lets go the whole hog and move to a new building.

I'd rather that the default backdrop for Studio A was the election VR used recently.

As far as I can see the biggest problem with presentation in terms of sets is that the standing sets in studio C and E, and the virtual recreation deployed in A, are designed to be so similar. While this does have some great advantages - the difference between N6/TC7 and N8/9 was startling and very obvious, even to those who don't pay attention to such things - there isn't a need for them to be carbon copies of one another. World News take a single, separately branded programme from studio E on a regular basis (Dateline London), and the NC is in studio C for just one hour a day five days a week (excluding the World News-produced overnight bulletins).

If World News decamped to studio B over a weekend, viewers would barely notice. There are some big differences between B and C, but they were designed so clearly in the same style that any difference would be negligible. By comparison studio C - which works very well both in close ups and wide shots when the LEDs are showing the London skyline - looks pretty awful when using the 'balcony' shot. The advantages of having such similarly designed sets for the NC actually makes it look worse on screen in this respect, not better.

And the VR set used in A for generic bulletins looks quite poor by comparison - the desk is (rather randomly) a different design to those used anywhere other recently-built set, the background suffers the same problems it does in C, and the 'screens' not only look fake, but have been designed to look dramatically different to those in C and E.

So if you can't actually generate what works in studio E - an interesting, but not too distracting background that adds depth to the picture, instead of a very 2D shot of the newsroom clearly taken from a strange looking-down angle - why bother? While studios C and E aren't nearly as big as studio B, I don't see why they couldn't have worked a degree more variation into them. Or when a programme like Hardtalk is, in many ways, indistinguishable from its last TVC incarnation, why not put that level of detail or work into the generic bulletins' set?

Perhaps a bit stronger than I would have put it, but you've said what a lot of people were thinking.

Think about the shot composition of such a move. As far as I can see, there are two options:
1) tilt down, spin around while looking at the floor / bald spots / down peoples tops, then tilt up to go to the weather area. Main result, people feeling nauseous from the spin.
2) tilt up, then spin around while looking out the windows until you get to the weather area. Not showing any of the newsroom in the process.

Both options can be improved upon by tracking the camera around a rail on the bottom to make them even more disorientating / confusing / pointless.

Just because you can mount a camera somewhere doesn't mean you should.



Looking at Mediaboy's photo of the Trundle Cam it appears that it can ped up and down if required.

Going to weather I'd have it above E zoomed pointing inside, then whilst the presenter does their handover, the camera will zoom back, whilst going round the rail, panning the newsroom and stopping beside the weather.

At the TOTH, I'd start where the weather move ended, but pointing at E, move clockwise around the rail whilst zooming slowly on E and tracking whilst moving.

This is a ridiculous idea. Not to mention the difficulty in maintaining said camera if its 20ft in the air, the shots you would end up with would be terrible. They'd be better to have no camera at all.

First, you won't see the presenter in E from a camera mounted on the ring, they're seated too far into the room. Second, tracking around a curve while panning will look weird at best and make people nauseous at worst.

Neither of your ideas will look half as good as the current set up.

I would like to see Studio E use different colour lighting schemes for its branded shows although thinking about it BBC News doesn't have any really so we are stuck with red all the time. If anyone has seen Focus on Africa BBC World News do some fantastic lighting effects in Studio B.

Yeah, the thing is that all the branded programmes and strands that the NC/N24 used to have have gone. I would love to see them bring back some programmes on the weekend, possibly even putting a little coffee table on the stand up area. They could bring some Business Editions back, They could have a branded Business Edition at 1630 for the closing of the LSE. It would be great if the News Channel had some variation like it did back in the 1999-2003 Era. This could even include branding the Five and Nine as Newshours or something. But Studio E has some potential and it's a shame they don't use it.

Back in the 1999 era they used to have so many different strands and programmes Business Today, Agenda, Scoreline, Talking Movies, Straight Talk, Liquid News, Asia Today, Australia Direct, Europe Direct, 7 Days, One to One, The World Today and some which are still around today Sportsday, World Business Report, HARDtalk and Dateline London. And there were others in later years such as The Record, News 24 Tonight and E24. All things which gave the channel that little bit more.

Also, is it just me or is there a pattern on the panel in front of the desk in Studio E as it doesn't look like its just one colour. I noticed that it isn't the same as the one in Studio B and C as they are double sided.

That's because the panel in E is an LED Screen (apparently the wrong one was ordered - which i find hard to believe!) whereas in B & C it is a perspex panel with LED lights.

That panel has a silhouette of London buildings during Dateline London, Looks nice.
At the moment the schedule on BBC World News at 2100 UK time is Business Edition from 2100 to 2130 (weather included) and 2130 to 2200 Hardtalk. With such little Business coverage on BBC News domestic wouldn't it be an idea to similcast this program on BBC News and use the back half hour to turn towards UK specific business?